User notification

ABSTRACT

A data processing device comprises a notification controller configured to provide notification to a user in response to a data processing event at that device or another device to which that device is connected; and a user interface by which the user can attend to a user notification to carry out a data processing task relating to the notified data processing event; the notification controller being configured to inhibit further notifications while the user is attending to a current notification using the user interface.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

The present application claims the benefit of the earlier filing date ofGB1104685.1m filed in the United Kingdom Patent Office on 21 Mar. 2011,the entire contents of which application are incorporated herein byreference.

BACKGROUND

1. Field of the Invention

This invention relates to user notifications.

2. Description of the Related Art

A user of a networked or connected device may receive audio and/or videonotifications or alerting messages (“alerts”) about events relating tothat device or to other networked devices.

Here, the term “networked device” or “connected device” implies that thedevice is connectable, for example by an electrical cable, by an opticalconnection, wirelessly or by combinations of these, to at least oneother device. In many instances such a connection may be via an internetconnection or via a unidirectional broadcast connection from, forexample, a content provider to the device, via a short range wirelessconnection (for example, a Bluetooth® connection, a wireless network(“WiFi”) connection or any other appropriate wireless protocolconnection) with a portable device such as a mobile telephone, or via acombination of these. The device could be, for example, a television orradio receiver, a computer terminal, a mobile telephone or personaldigital assistant or the like.

Considering a television receiver as an example of such a networkeddevice, it is known for television receivers to be connectable to theinternet and to interact with internet-based services such as emailservices, video playback services, instant messaging services and thelike.

There are many ways in which user notifications may arise in systemslike this. For example, a user's television receiver may be running aninternet based email application. The email application runs as abackground task and so it is normally invisible to the user. However,when an email message arrives for the user, the email application mayplace a small temporary notification within the displayed image. Theuser may choose whether or not to interact with that notification inorder to open the email message and launch the full screen emailapplication. Another example relates to system notifications. Sometelevision receivers or other devices may display status notificationssuch as “you have lost your internet connection”.

It is known to provide the user with the facility to suppress suchnotifications. In this case, the notifications may be buffered, so thatwhen the user allows notifications once again, the user may be providedwith access to notifications received during the suppression period.

SUMMARY

The foregoing paragraphs have been provided by way of generalintroduction, and are not intended to limit the scope of the followingclaims. The described embodiments, together with further advantages,will be best understood by reference to the detailed description belowtaken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

This invention provides a data processing device comprising:

a notification controller configured to provide notification to a userin response to a data processing event at that device or another deviceto which that device is connected; and

a user interface by which the user can attend to a user notification tocarry out a data processing task relating to the notified dataprocessing event;

the notification controller being configured to inhibit furthernotifications while the user is attending to a current notificationusing the user interface.

The invention recognises that while some notifications can be useful andappreciated by the user, it can be annoying to receive a series ofnotifications such that further notifications actually interrupt theuser's attention from the first notification.

The invention addresses this problem by inhibiting (for example,delaying or preventing) the provision of subsequent notifications untilthe user has finished attending to a current notification.

US 2002/0124252 A1 provides a television receiver which allows a user toestablish a “profile” defining types of alerts which are allowed to bedisplayed during the viewing of particular television channels orparticular programmes. However, the problem remains of how to handlemultiple closely spaced alerts of a particular “allowed” alert type.

US 2010/0138858 A1 provides a television receiver in the context of anemergency alert system, whereby the television receiver canautomatically delay the display of broadcast alert messages relating topotential dangers (such as bad weather) affecting a user. The delaycould be applied, for example, so that display of the notification isdeferred until the currently viewed programme is interrupted by acommercial or advertisement. Once again, however, the problem remainsthat the queued alerts may be provided at very close instants in time,so the earlier alerts may be hard for the user to follow.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

A more complete appreciation of the disclosure and many of the attendantadvantages thereof will be readily obtained as the same becomes betterunderstood by reference to the following detailed description whenconsidered in connection with the accompanying drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 schematically illustrates a set of networked devices;

FIG. 2 schematically illustrates a television receiver;

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating the handling of usernotifications by the television receiver of FIG. 2;

FIGS. 4 a to 4 d schematically illustrate a user interacting with usernotifications;

FIG. 5 is a schematic flowchart for dealing with notifications; and

FIGS. 6 a to 6 d schematically illustrate a user display.

DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

Referring now to the drawings, wherein like reference numerals designateidentical or corresponding parts throughout the several views, FIG. 1schematically illustrates a set of networked devices. Just a smallnumber of devices are illustrated, for clarity of the diagram. Thesedevices are: a television (TV) content provider 10, a TV receiver 20, amobile telephone 30 and an email server 40. All of the devices cancommunicate via the internet 50. In addition, there is a unidirectionalbroadcast signal path from the TV content provider 10 to the TV receiver20, a short range (such as Bluetooth®) wireless link between the TVreceiver 20 and the mobile telephone 30, and a wireless link (not shown)between the mobile telephone 30 and a cellular telephone network (notshown).

Of course, the diagram is shown in simplified form. For example, it willbe appreciated that often there is a bidirectional link between a TVcontent provider and a TV receiver, with programme orders, controlmessages and statistics passing back from the TV receiver to the TVcontent provider. There would in also of course be many more than fournodes in a real network of this type.

The broadcast path from the TV content provider to the TV receiver maybe a terrestrial wireless link, a satellite wireless link, an electricalor optical cable link, or even a combination of these.

The TV content provider sends electronic programme guide (EPG) data tothe TV receiver 20. The receiver can display the EPG data to the user,who can then do various things such as selecting a TV channel to watchnow, or setting a reminder by selecting a scheduled programme to watchat a later time.

The TV receiver 20 is arranged to access emails held on the email server40, via its internet connection. To do this, the TV receiver runs anemail application program which either checks the email server 40 fornew emails at periodic intervals, or receives new emails as so-called“push” messages, initiated by the email server, whenever a new emailappears on the email server. The email server is just one example of themany internet-based services which the TV receiver 20 may access,including video replay services, social networking services and thelike.

The TV receiver 20 is an example of a receiver arranged to receive, andto play as a user output, audio/video content transmitted by a contentprovider.

FIG. 2 schematically illustrates a television receiver as an example ofa networked device. The TV receiver 20 shown in FIG. 2 comprises a bus100 to which the following are connected: a central processing unit(CPU) 110, an audio/video (NV) interface 120 which in turn is connectedto a display screen 130 and a loudspeaker 140, a signal receiver 150 forreceiving the broadcast television signal from the TV content provider10, an optional keyboard 160 (which may be built into the casing of thetelevision receiver), a memory 170, non-volatile storage 180 and aninput/output (I/O) controller 190 which establishes an internetconnection, a wireless connection with a remote controller 200, and awireless connection with the mobile telephone 30.

In operation, the CPU operates under the control of software which maybe stored in the non-volatile storage 180, to control functions of theTV receiver and/or to manipulate data which can be temporarily stored inthe memory 170. However, of course, the TV receiver could operate, atleast in part, as hardware or semi-programmable hardware such asapplication specific integrated circuits or field programmable gatearrays.

The software can, for example, relate to signal processing functionsapplied to video and audio signals received by the signal receiver 150.Other features of the software can relate to communication with otherconnected devices such as the email server 40. In these types offunction, the software can be substantially conventional. That is tosay, the way in which the TV receiver 20 interacts with (for example)the email server conforms to the normal interaction of an email clientwith an email server, except with regard to specific functions to bedescribed in detail below.

A further function of the software, which is of particular relevance tothe present embodiments, relates to the handling of user alerts ornotifications.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram illustrating the handling of usernotifications. In particular, FIG. 3 shows a notification controller 210which receives notification data (the source of such data beingdescribed below) and user interface (UI) data from the keyboard 160 orthe remote controller 200, and optionally interacts with stored prioritydata 220. An output from the notification controller passes to the A/Vinterface 120.

The notification controller 210 is thus configured to providenotification to a user in response to a data processing event (such asinitiation of a communication, an error, a reminder and the like) atthat device or another device to which that device is connected. Ingeneral terms, a data processing event at a device represents an eventoccurring by means of that device, whether initiated by another user, atimer, an action at another data processing device or a change in thestate of that data processing device.

It will be understood that whereas FIG. 2 illustrates the structure ofthe TV receiver 20, FIG. 3 is another view of those same structuralelements, but expressed in a way that will allow a discussion of thelogical interaction of different functions within the TV receiver. Itwill therefore be understood that the notification controller 210 may infact be implemented by the CPU 110 running appropriate software, thatthe priority data 220 may in fact be stored in an appropriate portion ofthe memory 170, and that interactions between the functional units shownin FIG. 3 may correspond to data and other communications over the bus100.

The operation of the TV receiver in respect of user notifications willnow be described with reference to FIGS. 4 a to 4 d and 5.

FIG. 4 a is a schematic illustration of a television image (of a soccergame) displayed on the display 130 of the TV receiver 20. The TVreceiver 20 interacts with an email server such as the email server 40on behalf of the user. In doing this, the TV receiver 20 either receivesa notification from the email server that a new email is waiting on theemail server or, more usually, retrieves the new email from the emailserver and then generates a notification for display to the user inorder to let the user know that the email has arrived. An example 230 ofsuch a displayed notification is illustrated schematically as an overlayon the displayed television image.

It will be appreciated that audible notifications could be used insteadof or in addition to the displayed notifications. It will also beappreciated that the notifications could be provided on another device,for example a notification relating to the TV receiver could be providedon the mobile telephone 30.

The displayed notification 230 is generated by the notificationcontroller 210. The notification controller responds to the receipt ofnotification data—in this case, from the email application of the TVreceiver 20—to generate the displayed notification 230.

The user has the choice to ignore the notification 230, in which casethe notification controller 210 can be arranged so that the notificationis removed after a predetermined period (such as 30 seconds) of beingignored, or alternatively the notification controller 210 can bearranged so that the ignored notification remains visible indefinitelyif it is ignored. Here, “indefinitely” could mean any of: until the TVreceiver is switched off; until another notification is received; oruntil the user eventually deals with the notification.

Another choice on the part of the user is to dismiss the notification.This is sometimes presented as a selectable option when a notificationis displayed. Dismissing the notification does not necessarily affectthe underlying cause of the notification; for example, dismissing anotification that a new email has arrived would not be expected to causethe deletion of that email. But dismissing a notification would causethe notification controller 210 to remove the visible notification 230from the display.

A further option is that the user attends to the notification. Thismeans that the user does something in response to the notification,other than merely dismissing it. For example, if the notificationrelates to an incoming email, the user may elect (for example byselecting a menu command associated with the displayed notification 230,or simply by moving a cursor to the displayed notification 230) to readthe corresponding email. This situation is illustrated schematically inFIG. 4 b, where the user has elected to read an email which is shown onthe screen as a displayed message 240. In general, carrying out a dataprocessing task to attend to a notification relating to a dataprocessing event involves the user interacting, via a user interface,with the notification and/or with the device in respect of the notifieddata processing event.

Accordingly, items such as the keyboard 160 and the remote commander 200can provide a user interface by which the user can attend to a usernotification to carry out a data processing task relating to thenotified data processing event. to Note that the drawings of FIGS. 4 ato 4 d are shown with the same underlying video image of the soccerplayer. In practice, the video material of a moving soccer player mayhave changed between the time that the displayed notification 230appeared and the time that the user opens the corresponding message 240,but the same image is used simply for schematic purposes.

The period which the user spends reading the displayed email message 240and potentially responding to it is referred to as time when the user isattending to the notification. That is to say, the user is takingsubstantive action using the TV receiver 20 in response to a displayednotification. In the arrangements to be described below, this act ofattending to the notification could be taken to relate only to dealingwith the specific underlying cause of the notification (for example, aspecific email) or could be taken to refer to the total continuous timethat the user keeps the email application open after responding to anotification.

FIG. 4 c schematically illustrates an undesirable situation, in whichthe user is attending to a first notification by reading or respondingto an email displayed as a message 240, when another notification 230′is displayed by the notification controller 210. This is a situationwhich the present embodiments aim to avoid. The user is in danger ofbeing successively distracted from attending to the first notificationby the subsequent notifications.

Accordingly, in embodiments of the invention, the display (by thenotification controller 210) of a subsequent notification 230′ isinhibited until the user is detected to have finished attending to thefirst notification, for example by closing or minimising (reducing to anicon) the email application. Referring to FIG. 4 d, once the user hasfinished attending to a current notification, the notificationcontroller is allowed to display a subsequent notification 230′. In thisway the notification controller 210 is configured to inhibit furthernotifications while the user is attending to a current notificationusing the user interface.

An example of a process behind this technique will now be described withreference to the schematic flowchart of FIG. 5.

At a step 300, either information regarding a data processing eventcausing a new notification is received by the notification controller210, or a detection is made by the notification controller 210 that anotification is held in a queue (see below).

At a step 310, the notification controller 210 detects whether the useris attending to a previous notification. This is abbreviated in FIG. 5to the generic question “UI busy?” and can in some embodiments simplyinvolve a test (a) as to whether an application (such as an email orsocial networking application) is currently running in an active mode,that is to say, a mode in which the application is displayed in such away that the user may enter data into or view data from thatapplication. (To avoid doubt, in embodiments of the invention the merepresence of a notification icon such as the icon 230, without anyassociated action having been taken by the user, is not considered torepresent the UI being busy).

In more involved embodiments, a secondary test (b) can be applied as towhether such a currently open application relates to the previouslyreceived notification. So, for example, if the previously receivednotification related to an incoming email and the currently openapplication is an email tool, then the user is considered to beattending to the notification until the email tool is minimised orclosed.

A further level of testing is to detect (c) whether an actual email thatthe user is viewing is either the email for which the notification wasdisplayed, or a reply to that email. Or in the case of a socialnetworking notification, is the user currently viewing information aboutthe person to whom the notification related?

A subtle further level of testing as to whether the user is attending tothe notification is to detect (d) the time elapsed since the user lastissued a UI command, such as typing a character or moving a cursor. Ifthis time exceeds a predetermined threshold (such as one minute) thenthe user can be considered no longer to be attending to thenotification.

These tests (a) to (d) are just examples of how the notificationcontroller, interacting with other processes operated by the CPU 110 andwith the keyboard 160 and I/O controller 190 can detect whether a useris still attending to a previous notification. The tests can be appliedsingly or in different permutations.

If it is detected that the user is not attending to a previousnotification, then at a step 320 the notification controller causes anotification to be displayed so as to notify the user of the newlydetected event. At a step 330 the user may attend to the notification asdescribed above, and the process ends in respect of that notification.

If however at the step 310 it is detected that the user is attending tothe previous notification, then at a step 340 a detection is made as towhether the new notification is already in a queue maintained (in thememory 170) by the notification controller 210. If the notification isalready in the queue, then the process ends. If not, then the newnotification is added to the queue at a step 350 and the process ends.In this way, the notification controller 210 can be configured to deferany further notifications while the user is attending to a currentnotification using the user interface, until the user has finishedattending to the current notification. The notification controller canachieve this by generating and/or maintaining a queue comprising anyfurther notifications while the user is attending to a currentnotification using the user interface, s and by providing notificationsrelating to the queue once the user has finished attending to thecurrent notification.

The notifications are in response to a data processing event at that oranother connected device. So, for example, the arrival of an email atthe email server, the initiation of a chat or voice call at a remoteserver, or the current time reaching an alarm time stored by the TVreceiver are each considered to be a data processing event giving riseto a notification.

As mentioned above, the process shown in FIG. 5 commences when either anentirely new notification is initiated or the notification controllerdetects that a notification is held in the queue. In the latter case,the process would be executed in respect of the notification at the headof the queue, which can be defined as, for example, the first-receivednotification in the queue or alternatively it could be defined as themost recently added notification in the queue.

To avoid the processing overhead of running the process of FIG. 5continuously, the notification controller 210 could check atpredetermined intervals (such as every 60 seconds) whether anotification is held in the queue.

Queuing undisplayed notifications is just one possible outcome in thesituation that a notification is inhibited from being displayed whilethe user is attending to a previous notification.

Another outcome is that the notification controller automaticallydismisses such newly received notifications if they cannot be displayedimmediately because the user is still attending to a previous one. Inanother alternative, the notification controller could automaticallydismiss a notification after it has been held in the queue for apredetermined period (such as five minutes) without being displayed tothe user.

The system could be arranged so that the user attends to a notificationusing a different device. So, for example, the user could attend to anotification on the TV receiver 20 by operating the mobile telephone 30.In this case, the step 310 involves a test as to whether the user isbusy attending to the notification on the mobile telephone 30.

In a further modification of the arrangement of FIG. 5, the notificationcontroller can maintain the priority data 220 of FIG. 3, which may beassociated with different types of notification, the priority datadefining whether a notification of a particular type should be allowedto be provided while the user is attending to a current notification.The priority data represents an order of precedence of notifications,and is relevant to a further possible test which can be interposedbetween the “yes” branch of the step 310 and the step 340 in FIG. 5,namely “Does the newly received notification have a higher position, inthe priority data, than the notification that the user is currentlyattending to?” (which may be taken as the previous notification if it isnot explicitly identified as part of the step 310).

If the answer to this additional test is “yes”, then control is passedto the step 320 and the user is notified of the new notification even ifthe user is still attending to the previous notification. If the answeris no, then control passes to the step 340 as before.

The priority data could have the form shown below, where alower-numbered priority level indicates a higher precedence, so that(for example) a priority 1 notification is higher in precedence than apriority 2 notification.

Priority 1 Voice and/or video call initiated by another user Doorbellactivated by someone trying to enter the user's house Priority 2Real-time chat message arrived Priority 3 Email message arrived Socialnetwork notification received SMS text message received Priority 4System status messages

Where two notifications have an equal level in the priority data, thenthe answer to the new test mentioned above will of course be “no” andcontrol will pass to the step 340.

In another example of the use of priority data, if, for example, thedevice is a car radio receiver with a Bluetooth connection to a mobiletelephone to provide hands-free calling, then traffic news bulletinscould be considered as having priority 1 whereas a voice telephone callcould be a priority 2. In this way, travel news will temporarilyinterrupt a voice call, whereas if the travel news has already started,a voice call will not interrupt the travel news. Alternatively, in atelevision receiver, a notification that the user has a voice call couldbe considered a higher priority than the user attending to an incomingemail.

Another example of the use of priority data is that the queue (see thesteps 340 and 350 in FIG. 5) of notifications for display can bemaintained:

(a) in order of time of receipt of the notifications, so that when theUI ceases to be busy, the next notification to be notified to the userwill be the earliest received notification regardless of its priority,or

(b) in order of priority, so that a higher priority notification will benotified to the user in precedence to a lower priority notification thathad been received earlier, or

(c) as a combination of (a) and (b), so that the priority of anotification is used first to arrange the queue, but then the time ofreceipt is used to decide an order amongst notifications of equalpriority.

Priority data can also be established between different sources ofinterruption. So, for s example, an incoming email from Friend A can beset by the user (or detected by the notification controller—see below)to be higher priority than an incoming email from Friend B.

The priority data can be predetermined. Alternatively, the priority datacan be initially established (for example, as a default set ofpredetermined data) but then the notification controller can modify orchange the priority data in response to a detection (using the tests atthe step 310) of which types of notification the user commonly respondsand/or attends to. In this way, the system can detect which types ofnotification (from a predetermined set of types) the user responds to,and therefore considers important. For example, the notificationcontroller can switch the priority positions of two notification typesin the priority data if the user is (say) ten times more likely torespond to the lower priority notification type than the higher prioritynotification type.

In embodiments of the invention, the TV receiver 20 can automaticallyinitiate a recording of a currently displayed programme in response to auser notification either being displayed or being attended to. This istherefore a supplementary step associated with the step 320 (if therecording is initiated in response to the notification being displayed)or with the step 330 (if the recording is initiated in response to theuser attending to the notification). This means that if the user isdistracted by a notification, the user can avoid missing part of thecurrently viewed programme.

The initiation of a recording can take various different forms:

(i) The TV receiver can start to record the currently displayedprogramme to the non-volatile storage 180 (for example a hard discdrive) but continue to display the programme. A user control is thenprovided to allow the user to replay the recorded programme from thestart of the recording. In this instance, the recording and delayedreplay will need to continue through to the end of the programme, sothat the non-volatile storage 180 acts as a temporary buffer of aportion of the programme material.

(ii) The TV receiver can start to record the currently displayedprogramme to the non-volatile storage 180 (for example a hard discdrive) and pause the display of the programme. A user control is thenprovided to allow the user to continue the recorded programme from itspaused position, and/or the replay from pause can be automaticallyinitiated when the user has finished attending to a notification whichcaused the system to pause. In this instance, the recording and delayedreplay will need to continue through to the end of the programme, sothat the non-volatile storage 180 acts as a temporary buffer of aportion of the programme material.

(iii) If the TV receiver is already of the type that buffers displayedprogrammes to the non-volatile storage 180 to allow the user to pauselive programmes, then at the time of the notification or the time of theuser attending to that notification (as the case may be), the TVreceiver can either initiate a pause using its existing arrangement, orit can continue to replay but also store a time marker (or flag) toindicate the time at which the notification was displayed or attendedto. A user control can then be provided to skip back, in the recordedmaterial, to the time corresponding to the time marker.

Some notifications affect the way in which the UI, particularly itemslike the keyboard 160, behave. For example, some notifications “takecontrol” of certain UI controls such as an enter key, and become theforeground object which responds first to such a key being pressed.

So, for example, if the user is typing without looking at the display130 and such a notification appears, the user could continue to type sothat either (a) the typing is applied to the notification rather thanthe application the user thought he was using, or (b) the typing isignored until characters that the notification recognises (such as theenter key) are pressed. In either instance, this can be frustrating forthe user.

A solution to this is presented in FIGS. 6 a to 6 d, which schematicallyillustrate a display on which the user is typing using a text entryapplication such as a word processor. A current typing position is shownby a cursor 400. FIG. 6 a illustrates the situation before anotification is displayed. In FIGS. 6 b and 6 c the notification 230″ isdisplayed but with an associated delay period of perhaps five seconds.During the delay period, the displayed notification may be faded intoview (as shown schematically in FIGS. 6 b and 6 c), but a technicallysignificant feature is that during that delay period the displayednotification does not become the foreground object and so is not theobject to which typing is directed. This allows the user to continuetyping into the word processor application during the delay period andso to complete the typing up to the position shown in FIG. 6 d beforethe displayed notification takes over as the foreground object to whichtyping is directed. An intention of this feature is to allow the usertime to realise that a notification has been displayed (possibly withthe aid of an audible notification as well) and so to be aware of whichobject is responding to the user's typing.

Further embodiments can relate to handling, for example, multiple email,SMS, social network or telephone conversations. Consider an example inwhich a user is contacted Friend

A, by any of the communication means just mentioned. A notification isprovided to the user of the incoming communication. If the user decidesto attend to the notification, then one possibility is that anyconcurrent communication notifications from Friends B, C, D and so onare cached until the user has finished attending to the communicationfrom Friend A.

Another possibility is that one or more of Friends B, C, D may havehigher priority than Friend A, in which case their communication isnotified even while the user is attending to Friend A. That prioritymight have been established before this round of communication, or couldarise from the fact that (for example) Friend B is corresponding on thesame subject as the original communication from Friend A, or perhaps isreplying to the same email that Friend A sent to both Friend B and theuser.

In the case of social networking chat communication, then if the user isalready attending to a notification about a communication from oneFriend, the notification relating to another

Friend could be allowed but in the form of “do you want to allow [FriendB] to join this chat session”. If the user's answer is “no” then thenotification is returned to the queue, and is later (when the user hasfinished attending to the current notification) notified, but in thecontext of a request by Friend B for a one to one communication with theuser.

In so far as embodiments of the invention have been described as beingimplemented, at least in part, by software-controlled data processingapparatus, it will be appreciated that such software, as well as anon-transitory machine-readable storage medium which carries suchsoftware (and which may be considered as a computer program product)such as an optical disk, a magnetic disk, semiconductor memory or thelike, are considered to represent embodiments of the present invention.

Obviously, numerous modifications and variations of the presentdisclosure are possible in the light of the above teachings. It istherefore to be understood that within the scope of the appended claimsthe invention may be practised otherwise than as specifically describedherein.

1. A data processing device comprising: a notification controllerconfigured to provide notification to a user in response to a dataprocessing event at that device or another device to which that deviceis connected; and a user interface by which the user can attend to auser notification to carry out a data processing task relating to thenotified data processing event; the notification controller beingconfigured to inhibit further notifications while the user is attendingto a current notification using the user interface.
 2. A deviceaccording to claim 1, in which the notification controller is configuredto defer any further notifications while the user is attending to acurrent notification using the user interface, until the user hasfinished attending to the current notification.
 3. A device according toclaim 2, in which the notification controller is configured to generatea queue comprising any further notifications while the user is attendingto a current notification using the user interface, and to providenotifications relating to the queue once the user has finished attendingto the current notification.
 4. A device according to claim 1, in whichthe notification controller maintains priority data associated withdifferent types of notification, the priority data defining whether anotification of a particular type should be allowed to be provided whilethe user is attending to a current notification of that or another type.5. A device according to claim 4, in which the notification controlleris configured to change the priority data in response to a detection ofwhich types of notifications the user attends to.
 6. A device accordingto claim 1, the device being a receiver arranged to receive, and to playas a user output, audio/video content transmitted by a content provider.7. A device according to claim 6, comprising: a content recorder forrecording received content; and a recording controller configured toinitiate a recording of received content in response to the notificationcontroller providing a user notification.
 8. A device according to claim6, in which the recording controller is configured to store a flagindicating a time at which a recording was initiated.
 9. A deviceaccording to claim 7, the device being configured to pause the playingof received content in response to the provision of a user notification.10. A device according to claim 9, in which the device is configured toresume the playing of received content when the user has finishedattending to the user notification.
 11. A device according to claim 1,in which the user notifications are audio and/or video notifications.12. A receiver device arranged to receive, and to play as a user output,audio/video content transmitted by a content provider audio/videocontent from a content provider, the device comprising: a notificationcontroller configured to provide notification to a user in response to adata processing event at that device or another device to which thatdevice is connected; a content recorder for recording received content;and a recording controller configured to initiate a recording ofreceived content in response to the notification controller providing auser notification.
 13. A method of operating a data processing device,the method comprising: providing notification to a user in response to adata processing event at that device or another device to which thatdevice is connected; providing a user interface by which the user canattend to a user notification to carry out a data processing taskrelating to the notified data processing event; and inhibiting furthernotifications while the user is attending to a current notificationusing the user interface.
 14. A method of operating a receiver devicearranged to receive, and to play as a user output, audio/video contenttransmitted by a content provider audio/video content from a contentprovider, the method comprising: providing notification to a user inresponse to a data processing event at that device or another device towhich that device is connected; and initiating a recording of receivedcontent in response to the provision of a user notification.
 15. Anon-transitory machine-readable medium on which is stored computersoftware for implementing the method of claim
 13. 16. A non-transitorymachine-readable medium on which is stored computer software forimplementing the method of claim 14.